Gluten Free Nail Polish? This Honest Company lets you Decide – Zoya

I get tons of questions about gluten free nail polish.

Sadly, it’s a tough product to find! With the emphasis placed on moisturizing and conditioning that nail products have, gluten derived ingredients are particularly wide spread. This is their specialty, therefore they are used in almost every nail product imaginable.

Then I found zoya.

In all my gluten free makeup travels, I’ve run across a huge variety of gluten statements. Everything from “Yes!!” (when it isn’t) to “I don’t know… Ask your doctor”.

Zoya has perhaps one of the most honest gluten statements i have ever seen.When I first talked to them on the phone, the CS rep had all her answers right at her fingertips. Without hesitation, she told me nearly everything I wanted to know. Later, when I needed a little more info, I was able to get that too without any trouble. They were polite, they were thorough, they were happy to help me.

Truly, Zoya won me over before they had even finished giving me the information.

However.

Zoya’s policy, while honest, is not one that I have ever seen before. It exposes open ends in ways that I’ve never seen a company do before.

Zoya nail polish does not contain any ingredients that are considered to be sources of gluten.

Zoya does not state that we are 100% free of gluten, even if measures are taken specifically for the purpose of reducing cross-contamination, because human error is always a possible factor when it comes to manufacturing.

Zoya manufacturing facilities could not confirm if manufacture of other products are not a possible source of cross-contamination. They do not have the facility set up that we could guarantee no possibility of cross-contamination during the manufacturing of other products that may include gluten-containing ingredients, but measures are taken to reduce cross-contamination as much as possible. Therefore the likelihood of cross contamination is very low, but since our manufacturing methods are not specifically designed to reduce it completely, we do not guarantee that the likelihood is zero and claim our products are gluten-free.

I love them for their directness. Love them. But the big question is…

Does this make Zoya’s nail polish safe?

Well, here’s the thing… If a product is not tested gluten free, they can never guarantee it’s 100% safe. Even if their facilities are gluten free, the ingredients could come from a gluten soaked facility and we’d never really know.

This is the risk we run whenever we decide to place our trust in a company that is not tested gluten free. They only have so much control over what goes into their products.

So in essence, Zoya has one-upped some companies who do claim their products are safe. They have thoroughly sought out all possible sources of gluten and admitted that they do not have control over all aspects of the process.

If you’ve read all my notes at the end of the gluten free makeup list, you’ll see that I wrote about the risks we take when we use products that are not tested gluten free. This is something I’ve talked about, warned about, educated about, since the very beginning. It’s why I prefer to use tested gluten free lip products.

If the product is not tested, there is always a chance gluten snuck in somewhere, just as Zoya points out.

All that said, the fact still remains that zoya nail polish has the potential to be cross contaminated in some way. Because of this, they do not and will not claim that they have gluten free nail polish.

The question is… are they safe for gluten sensitive people to use?

Well… Only you can make that choice. Whatever choice you make, you know your body better than anyone else. Only you can know if the risk is worth taking or not. If gluten managed to get in there, would you be able to take the miniscule amount, or would you have a nasty reaction? If the polish flaked off into your food as you ate it, would ingesting a microscopic amount of gluten make you ill?

All these questions are ones only you can answer.Therefore i leave the choice up to you.

I am still debating adding Zoya to my list with a big “READ THIS” tag on it. Because it’s nice to know that Zoya has such a thorough, honest policy that really isn’t any worse than a lot of other “gluten free” and untested companies. But I also don’t want to spread the misconception that Zoya claims to be gluten free. They have been wonderful to work with and talk to, the last thing I want to do is cause them trouble by putting them on my “gluten free list” and then having people telling everyone that they are “gluten free” without reading the super-important notes. I have the utmost respect for Zoya due to their honesty and wish to represent them properly.

On a personal note, I have been using my Zoya nail polish. The colors are stunning, they have amazing staying power, the textures are gorgeous… In fact, I plan on writing up a quick review of them to show y’all how pretty they are. Don’t worry, I’ll be linking back to this post and restating Zoya’s policy. But they really are amazing nail polishes.